Nigerian president approves 5-year national broadband plan

Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan has approved the five-year National Broadband Plan developed by the Presidential Committee on Broadband over the past few months, Biztech reported. The policy document states that many challenges remain, especially with the deployment of a national fibre optic-based network to distribute approximately 10 terabytes of capacity already delivered to landing points in the country. There is an urgent need to accelerate the pace of efforts. This is necessary for the actualisation of the developmental goals of Vision 20:2020.

The government will therefore pursue a fivefold increase in broadband penetration by the end of 2017 over the 2012 penetration rate. Among other things, the committee has defined broadband within the Nigerian context as an internet service where the user can access the most demanding content in real time at a minimum speed of 1.5 Mbps. The government realises that every modern nation state depends on the reliable…